Speaker 1: Trust isn't just nice to have, but it's good for business.
Speaker 1: There are tons of data that's from Edelman's Trust Barometer
Speaker 1: to Gallop Pole and they say that when trust is present,
Speaker 1: employees are twenty one percent more productive, fifty percent more
Speaker 1: of your employees are retained, and forty percent less burnout.
Speaker 1: So it's not just oh kumba yah, we trust each other,
Speaker 1: you know, let's do a trust fall.
Speaker 2: It's more than that. It's actually good for the bottom line.
Speaker 3: Hey ba fam, Welcome back to the Brown Mbision podcast.
Speaker 3: I have the pleasure of being alongside one of my
Speaker 3: favorite humans Men to Hearts today mend to Heart's welcome
Speaker 3: to Brown Ambition.
Speaker 1: Mandy happy to be here. Thank you so much and
Speaker 1: equally one of my favorites humans as well.
Speaker 2: So honored to me.
Speaker 3: Thanks and a human that I don't ever get to see. Really,
Speaker 3: I think the last time I saw you, I was
Speaker 3: in LA for a hot minute. We happen to cross
Speaker 3: paths at a conference and I just really appreciated you
Speaker 3: taking the time to like, did we ever get coffee
Speaker 3: or what happen? I forget We talked about it, we intended.
Speaker 2: To, we did, but we did get to sit together
Speaker 2: at lunchtime.
Speaker 3: And we did okay, all blurring together. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: But Minda you know because you've been on the show
Speaker 3: before and I have gushed about you before. But for
Speaker 3: those who don't know, Minda Hearts is a trailblazer for me,
Speaker 3: at least in the career professional advice author space. You
Speaker 3: wrote the one of the first or it's definitely one
Speaker 3: of the most popular black female written professional and career
Speaker 3: development books called The Memo, which if y'all don't have
Speaker 3: the Memo, I don't, I don't know what's wrong with you.
Speaker 4: Please go get it.
Speaker 3: But this is you're coming out with your fourth book
Speaker 3: this summer, Yes, and this one is this one's quite different.
Speaker 3: So your new book is called talk to Me Nice,
Speaker 3: Talk to Me Nice. The seven trust language is for
Speaker 3: a better workplace. So this isn't so much targeting to
Speaker 3: like well, you tell me, but it doesn't feel like
Speaker 3: it's targeting like the worker. It's more like the institution,
Speaker 3: like how can we actually as company as workplaces, figure
Speaker 3: out how to better communicate with our staff our employees,
Speaker 3: but also like how we as the worker bees can
Speaker 3: communicate better with leadership?
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, and it's are you a leader and you've somehow
Speaker 1: we wrote a trust maybe not intentionally, but it's happened,
Speaker 1: and there's a communication breakdown.
Speaker 2: How do you get that back with your staff? But
Speaker 2: also if you're.
Speaker 1: An employee and you can't get what you need, how
Speaker 1: do you ask for it without losing your job?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So it's giving both parties the language they need to
Speaker 1: be able to communicate better and close that expectation gap.
Speaker 3: So why this book, Now, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I really didn't think I was going
Speaker 1: to write any more books. Mandy, the Memo right Within
Speaker 1: and You Were More Than Magic are three of my babies,
Speaker 1: and they were focused and centered around black and brown
Speaker 1: women and young women in the workplace or in their
Speaker 1: journeys to finding their voice. And I thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: I cracked the door open for others to write their books.
Speaker 1: And I felt like I did did my big one
Speaker 1: with these books. And I just didn't like I needed
Speaker 1: to add any more to the conversation that I wanted
Speaker 1: others to take the baton and do that. And then
Speaker 1: two years ago I woke up at like three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning to use the bathroom. Right, I'm getting older,
Speaker 1: so I you know, I can't sometimes sleep.
Speaker 4: Through the night, you know, you know, we know.
Speaker 2: So I got up and.
Speaker 1: I thought, and I had this like voice in my
Speaker 1: head saying, what if there were love languages for the workplace?
Speaker 1: What about the trust languages? And I just kind of
Speaker 1: wrote that in my notes and kind of set it
Speaker 1: to the side, and then I kept thinking about it
Speaker 1: and coming back to it. I'm like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we expect trust in our romantic relationships, our platonic relationships.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't we expect that in a place that will
Speaker 1: spend ninety thousand hours of our life at the workplace?
Speaker 4: Is that real?
Speaker 2: That? And so it's like, why wouldn't we want trust
Speaker 2: there too?
Speaker 1: And so I just started kind of mulling over it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, maybe maybe I have one more
Speaker 1: book in me. And I called this my crossover album
Speaker 1: because of course I still talk about some of the
Speaker 1: voices that aren't inside the workplace and how trust is
Speaker 1: being roaded. But trust is a universal issue, a global issue,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to be able to tackle that
Speaker 1: a little bit differently in this book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, it's been five years since the summer of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. I was in corporate America at the time.
Speaker 3: I think, like so many other workers, you get the
Speaker 3: emails from your CEO about how heartbroken they are, but
Speaker 3: what's happening in this country and you have these new commitments.
Speaker 3: Everyone's got a die director. You know, they've got their
Speaker 3: their statements on what's happening in the racial awakening and
Speaker 3: racial reckoning that we're going through, and they all make
Speaker 3: these big, lofty promises and blah blah blahlah blah. Five
Speaker 3: years later, I know you couldn't have planned it, but
Speaker 3: the trust is broken in so many ways because we're
Speaker 3: just seeing this, like I mean, this complete about face
Speaker 3: in the other direction. Of course now with our new
Speaker 3: leadership and power. So I feel like this book is
Speaker 3: extremely timely. I'm just I'm wondering, like your perspective as
Speaker 3: a black woman or for black women who working in
Speaker 3: corporate today, like is there any going back? Like, can
Speaker 3: we are we actually capable of trusting organizations again? Because
Speaker 3: there's so much cynicism, rightfully so, about the lip service
Speaker 3: that leaders pay to our community only to then turn
Speaker 3: around when it better suits them and go back on
Speaker 3: what they say. What their promises are, is that trust rebuildable?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, Mandy, I think the answer is yes.
Speaker 1: And that kind of is the thesis of talk to
Speaker 1: me nice. Is if trust can be built, it can
Speaker 1: be broken, and if it can be broken, it can
Speaker 1: be rebuilt.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But it takes an intentionality to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: And I think part of it is we just don't
Speaker 1: know how to ask for it. Because if you're my
Speaker 1: manager and you said all these wonderful things about how
Speaker 1: I am important in the workplace and this is inclusive,
Speaker 1: and then now you're saying something different and demonstrating something different,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to come to you and ask you, like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on? You know, can we have a conversation?
Speaker 1: You know, six months ago this was important and now
Speaker 1: it seems like it's not. That might ruffle some feathers, right,
Speaker 1: and I can't go to you and say, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't trust you anymore. You know, it's just not
Speaker 1: going to pan out.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: But I think that through the language of the trust
Speaker 1: languages to say, you know what, I would love to
Speaker 1: talk about what a little more transparency looks like. I
Speaker 1: noticed that this was a priority for the company, and
Speaker 1: I just want to understand that, you know, going forward,
Speaker 1: what does it look like?
Speaker 2: Right? Can we have a conversation like that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Built on transparency and transparency is one of the trust
Speaker 1: languages in my book. But transparency isn't about telling everything,
Speaker 1: giving all the information. Transparency is also saying I don't
Speaker 1: have all the answers right now, but as things arise,
Speaker 1: as you feel a concern, feel comfortable enough to approach
Speaker 1: me with questions, and if I have the answers, I'll
Speaker 1: provide them. And if I don't have them, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That would make me feel so much better as a
Speaker 1: black woman or anybody who feels like they're on the
Speaker 1: margins to say, Okay, maybe I could trust a little
Speaker 1: bit versus let's just sweep everything under the rug and
Speaker 1: there's nothing to see here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, trust is a process, and usually we
Speaker 3: learn about the love languages.
Speaker 4: Right. And I'm in.
Speaker 3: A I've been married for eight years now and together
Speaker 3: with my partner for a lot of years, an embarrassing number.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it feels crazy. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: understand how I have an eight year marriage, aren't I
Speaker 3: twenty four?
Speaker 4: I think doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: But love languages, I think they are, like they're very.
Speaker 4: And even gen Z talks about love languages and all that.
Speaker 3: What do you think, like, are the seven workplace love languages?
Speaker 3: Are they similar? Are they different? I mean there's seven
Speaker 3: of them versus like, however many four or five?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Do they mirror the love languages?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit about them without
Speaker 3: giving everything away in the book, because y'all got to.
Speaker 4: Go get it.
Speaker 2: Yes, please get it.
Speaker 4: Tell me about the seven trust languages.
Speaker 1: Okay, So for me and the five love languages, one
Speaker 1: of my languages is words of affirmation, right, and so
Speaker 1: one of the trust languages is acknowledgment because I think
Speaker 1: oftentimes what I found is people would come to me
Speaker 1: after a talk or in my DM and they would say, minda,
Speaker 1: I don't trust my manager, I don't trust HR, or
Speaker 1: I don't trust my colleagues, like you know.
Speaker 2: They're backstabbers all the things.
Speaker 1: And when I found is what people were really saying
Speaker 1: is what they weren't saying. Maybe they don't trust their
Speaker 1: manager or their colleagues, and that might be true, but
Speaker 1: what they were really saying is that a need that
Speaker 1: they have is not being met because that person isn't
Speaker 1: aware that you even need it. Right, So, for example,
Speaker 1: I would say, well, what you're really saying is you
Speaker 1: need more acknowledgment. If you were acknowledged for some of
Speaker 1: the work that you're doing, these projects that you keep.
Speaker 1: You know, you've been traveling for twelve months out of
Speaker 1: the year and nobody has said anything. Now they're sending
Speaker 1: you on another assignment. You just need some acknowledgement. If
Speaker 1: you had a little more acknowledgment, would that provide a
Speaker 1: little more trust for you? And then we started to
Speaker 1: unpack what's actually underneath the trust. And if you know
Speaker 1: that acknowledgment is important to you, how do you ask
Speaker 1: your manager or your colleague for it? Right in a
Speaker 1: way that they could probably give that to you, because
Speaker 1: nobody's going around the workplace with a crystal ball saying
Speaker 1: what does Mandy need for me to show trust?
Speaker 2: Right? But I let sound like a couple therapy. If
Speaker 2: I know that, then I could know my coffee order.
Speaker 4: But and wait, no, wrong topic.
Speaker 1: Right, wrong topic? But I think we do act like that. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: you should know I've been working here for ten years.
Speaker 1: You don't know that I need to be acknowledged, Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I have to manage like a fifty
Speaker 1: other people and one hundred other things. So no, I
Speaker 1: don't know that. But now if you tell me that,
Speaker 1: and now I know that that's what you need, then
Speaker 1: maybe I can provide that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And so we're closing this expectation of trust. And I
Speaker 1: feel like through the seven trust language, so acknowledgment is
Speaker 1: one transparency is another.
Speaker 2: Sensitivity.
Speaker 1: I feel like sensitivity right now in our workplaces is
Speaker 1: so important because we are talking about certain things that
Speaker 1: are a little more taboo that we thought we could
Speaker 1: talk about even last year, that we're not able to
Speaker 1: bring up now, you know. And so what would it
Speaker 1: look like even if I sit on one side of
Speaker 1: the aisle?
Speaker 2: I think about, you.
Speaker 1: Know what if I say this thing to a group
Speaker 1: of people who I know they feel differently about my
Speaker 1: political choices, is that going to eat road.
Speaker 2: Trust or enhance trust.
Speaker 1: I'm going to practice the language of sensitivity to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, this isn't the time for me to
Speaker 1: wear my red hat to the function, right, you know so,
Speaker 1: because that's going to erode trust and vice versa. So
Speaker 1: I think if we're just a little more in tune
Speaker 1: and self aware about what people need to do their
Speaker 1: best work. Then we can have an environment where everybody
Speaker 1: can thrive and not just survive.
Speaker 3: I don't want to interrupt the love languages. We've got sensitivity, transparency,
Speaker 3: I hope you have them written down. Transparent, appreciation, no acknowledgment, acknowledgment.
Speaker 2: So you got three there.
Speaker 1: Another one is security, and that's emotional, intellectual, and physical right.
Speaker 1: So it's not just psychological safety, but what about your
Speaker 1: intellectual property. When you're in a meeting and you say
Speaker 1: the big idea and then somebody takes it as their
Speaker 1: own right, you want to know that you could voice
Speaker 1: your concerns and not worry about somebody running off and
Speaker 1: saying that it's their own.
Speaker 2: Another language is feedback. Right.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes you might not trust somebody, but what is it
Speaker 1: that you really need?
Speaker 2: Is it touch? Need more feedback? Right?
Speaker 1: And feedback could provide a little more trust in that relationship.
Speaker 1: Another one follow through. Is it that you don't trust
Speaker 1: hr or do you need them to follow through? When
Speaker 1: you make a concern and then there's a conversation that's
Speaker 1: being had. I provide the information, they respond after they've
Speaker 1: had time to process it, and now we find a solution,
Speaker 1: we need a feedback loop. And then lastly is demonstration,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, the action. So for example, you
Speaker 1: mentioned DEI being like a big topic of conversation. So
Speaker 1: many companies were like down for the cause, ten toes down,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, they're like that Simpson
Speaker 1: meme where Homer's like moving back from the from the
Speaker 1: bushes and nobody wants to talk about it. But demonstration
Speaker 1: is saying, Okay, even though we know that politically we
Speaker 1: might not be able to say these things right now,
Speaker 1: we're demonstrating that inclusion is still important here. You don't
Speaker 1: have to be a woman or LGBTQ or a person
Speaker 1: of color and worry because we're still committed to the
Speaker 1: things because we're demonstrating that each and every day, right
Speaker 1: and so again, demonstration is the action. So when I
Speaker 1: think about trust, it's a noun anaverb, and it's very
Speaker 1: important for us to be activating that each and every day.
Speaker 1: Trust is in a one time event, it's a culture,
Speaker 1: it's a lifestyle inside the workplace.
Speaker 3: I'm digesting everything you said, and I'm wondering, could we
Speaker 3: add an eighth love language, and could it be money?
Speaker 4: Could it be like aay me nice?
Speaker 2: That's that acknowledgement, right, That's.
Speaker 4: That's the acknowledgment. Okay.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are feeling like, well,
Speaker 3: I would love to be like given feedback and all that,
Speaker 3: but I'd also like to be paid well. So that's
Speaker 3: under the acknowledgment umbrella. Okay, good, Just making sure.
Speaker 1: Well listen, money is a love is my love language,
Speaker 1: my trust language, all the all the languages.
Speaker 4: Money talks. You know.
Speaker 3: Like one of the things about this type of book
Speaker 3: is I feel like it's incredible and it's such a
Speaker 3: great tool, but it can be challenging of both people
Speaker 3: on the sides of a conversation don't have the same framework.
Speaker 4: To work from.
Speaker 3: So what advice would you have for someone who's reading
Speaker 3: your book and let's just say they are, you know,
Speaker 3: they are having issues with higher ups or hr whoever,
Speaker 3: and they're wanting to come to the table and have
Speaker 3: a conversation using one of these trust languages, but they
Speaker 3: are getting resistance on the other side because that person
Speaker 3: is not as committed to having like a productive conversation.
Speaker 3: How do you get this book in the hands of
Speaker 3: like all the managers and the senior level people, so
Speaker 3: that when we I'm putting myself in the in the
Speaker 3: shoes of an employee, come to them like they are
Speaker 3: prepared to have that kind of conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I was so intentional about
Speaker 1: with this book is providing tons of scripts so that
Speaker 1: the employee, even if the person on the other end
Speaker 1: doesn't even know what you're talking about, because you're probably
Speaker 1: not going to say, hey, my trust language, Bob is
Speaker 1: acknowledgment and sensitivity, because they're not going to know probably
Speaker 1: what you mean. But I have a framework in language
Speaker 1: that you could use to say, you know what, I've
Speaker 1: been on this project for the last several months. What
Speaker 1: really helps me do my best work is when you
Speaker 1: provide me a little more feedback. Is that something we
Speaker 1: can partner on right now? That signals to that person
Speaker 1: They don't have to know what any of this means,
Speaker 1: but they do know what.
Speaker 2: Feedback looks like, right, And then we get.
Speaker 1: To provide examples of after I finish a sprint, it
Speaker 1: would be great to know did.
Speaker 2: I hit expectations? Did I meet them?
Speaker 1: Did I succeed them, whatever that might look like to you.
Speaker 1: And then this provides us a framework because now we
Speaker 1: can stop creating a narrative in our mind that may
Speaker 1: or may not be true about if this person is
Speaker 1: invested in our success or not. They might not just
Speaker 1: be thinking about that you need that, right. So, now
Speaker 1: that I've positioned myself to actually have a conversation that
Speaker 1: they're aware of, now we could sit back and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'll know if I could trust them or not
Speaker 1: if they're starting to provide me that feedback. And so
Speaker 1: my hope is that managers will get this book and
Speaker 1: read it, and even if their employees don't understand what
Speaker 1: trust languages are, you ask them what trust look like
Speaker 1: for you on the team, right, because.
Speaker 2: I want to provide that for you.
Speaker 1: It's less about trust issues and more of a communication
Speaker 1: solve right, because we don't know how to talk to
Speaker 1: each other and people are fearful to bring certain things up.
Speaker 1: So I'm hopeful that talk to me nice will create
Speaker 1: the necessary conversations to be able to talk about trust
Speaker 1: that in a way that it doesn't have to be scary, right,
Speaker 1: because I think sometimes when we put it on the
Speaker 1: table that trust might be broken. People don't want to
Speaker 1: accept that because that can look kind of negative or
Speaker 1: sound kind of negative. But when we talk about what
Speaker 1: do we need to communicate better here and what do
Speaker 1: we need to make sure that everybody gets what they
Speaker 1: need to do their best work, I.
Speaker 2: Feel like it's framing. I don't know if you.
Speaker 1: I'm sure your listeners have heard. It's not what you
Speaker 1: say about how you say it. So if we package
Speaker 1: it up in a way that can kind of manage
Speaker 1: up to our leaders, then I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: it's a possibility, and we got to give it a shot.
Speaker 1: Like if people know what you need, then maybe they
Speaker 1: can provide it. But if we never say it, you know,
Speaker 1: closed mouths don't get fed, right.
Speaker 3: And I love that you have those scripts in there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: especially at a time when it feels like people are running.
Speaker 3: My cousin, she's twenty six, twenty seven. She's like, I
Speaker 3: am using chat GPT to help me figure out what
Speaker 3: to say back to this person I'm texting. It's like
Speaker 3: a challenging her roommate or whatever. It's a challenging conversation.
Speaker 3: But we need human we need that, we need the
Speaker 3: mendas and It's like, if y'all have an opportunity to
Speaker 3: get someone who has been giving professional workplace advice for
Speaker 3: how long have you been in this business?
Speaker 2: Twenty fifteen? Oh my god, you know since I was
Speaker 2: five years old.
Speaker 4: Yes, you were a child prodigy. That's right, because you're fifteen.
Speaker 3: You've been doing it for so long, and I just
Speaker 3: love I think that this is the access to, you know,
Speaker 3: someone like you. It's how we get our message out there.
Speaker 3: It's how we give advice without actually being able to
Speaker 3: touch every single person. I mean, I want to talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about repairing broken trust and who is
Speaker 3: responsible for that. I guess it's a two part question,
Speaker 3: which I know everyone loves, especially me who can never
Speaker 3: remember anything, But I'm thinking about how do we repair
Speaker 3: broken trust in the workplace? And then also the second
Speaker 3: part of that is like who's responsible? Like who really
Speaker 3: carries the responsibility of repairing that kind of trust? How
Speaker 3: do we make companies care about breaking our trust?
Speaker 2: You know? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll say this trust isn't just nice to have,
Speaker 1: but it's good for business. There are tons of data
Speaker 1: that's from Edelman's Trust Barometer to Gallop poll and they
Speaker 1: say that when trust is present, employees are twenty one
Speaker 1: percent more productive, fifty percent more of your employees are retained,
Speaker 1: and forty percent less burnout. So it's not just oh, kumbayah,
Speaker 1: we trust each other, you know, let's do a trust fall.
Speaker 1: It's more than that. It's actually good for the bottom line.
Speaker 1: So trust is good, you know, for everybody. So that
Speaker 1: should be part of our pillars and our values because
Speaker 1: that's going to benefit us in the long run. So
Speaker 1: for those people who are like, oh, we don't need trust, no,
Speaker 1: you absolutely do.
Speaker 4: Like I'm paying you, So what are we even hearing
Speaker 4: to do? Like, just do your job, don't have to
Speaker 4: say it.
Speaker 3: And the way that's your this is giving, like very
Speaker 3: I feel like this is going to be like catnip
Speaker 3: for all right. Media personalities who just love a snowflake moment, like,
Speaker 3: listen to this book. They want us to learn their
Speaker 3: their trust languages. Just do your job, like we know
Speaker 3: that to me is what's coming up.
Speaker 4: And it will and.
Speaker 2: People will say, well, why do I need to do
Speaker 2: all that? Right?
Speaker 1: But the reality is when trust is broken, we can't
Speaker 1: do our best work. And when trust is broken, our
Speaker 1: mental health hangs in the balance, Right, and we're anxious
Speaker 1: and we're fearful, and again we don't feel secure in
Speaker 1: our roles and we're going to leave.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Fifty percent of people leave their workplaces because of their manager.
Speaker 2: So think about that.
Speaker 1: If our managers were equipped with the tools they need
Speaker 1: to be successful, then that helps them be the coach
Speaker 1: that their team needs them to be.
Speaker 2: And so trust is a two way street, right.
Speaker 1: Just like any of the main love languages that Gary
Speaker 1: Chapman put out into the world, nobody can give me
Speaker 1: words of affirmation if I don't articulate that that's what
Speaker 1: I need.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So with the workplace trust languages, your manager may need
Speaker 1: help knowing what you need because they're just not thinking
Speaker 1: about you day to day in that way and that
Speaker 1: you know, that's another issue. But if I empower myself
Speaker 1: and take it back and let them know what good
Speaker 1: looks like to me, I have a primary language, I
Speaker 1: have a secondary language, and I have a tertiary language.
Speaker 2: Now, you don't always have to.
Speaker 1: Use that particular language till they understand what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: But if you can get under the hood.
Speaker 1: And say, oh, actually, these are the things that I need,
Speaker 1: that's empowering, right, And you take back the narrative of
Speaker 1: I work in a low trust or a high trust environment.
Speaker 1: So I would love to say that our managers are responsible.
Speaker 1: HR is responsible, and as a you know, individual contributor
Speaker 1: and some degree we are responsible.
Speaker 2: For how our careers move forward.
Speaker 1: And I want to see us make trust great again
Speaker 1: because we all need it. If you live in Tokyo,
Speaker 1: you want trust. If you live in North Dakota, you
Speaker 1: want trust, right. And so that is something that we
Speaker 1: all understand. You may not understand what it's like to
Speaker 1: be a black woman in the workplace, but you sure
Speaker 1: know what it feels like when trust is on the floor, right,
Speaker 1: And that's something we can all link arms with. And
Speaker 1: when we can talk about a universal word like trust,
Speaker 1: then we can solve for some of the other issues
Speaker 1: that I think people weren't ready to solve for.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I do a lot of work with
Speaker 3: women of color, like through my career coaching practice, and
Speaker 3: there's many many who I can think about who come
Speaker 3: to me and they are just so burnt out, not
Speaker 3: by like over being overworked, but by having consistent and persistent,
Speaker 3: like chronic underappreciation from their workplace from you know, being
Speaker 3: sort of like kicked around, like moved around, whether it's
Speaker 3: like you're moving managers too frequently, there's not a lot
Speaker 3: of investment, and they aren't even sure sometimes why they're
Speaker 3: unhappy at work. They're just like, I am miserable.
Speaker 4: I need to get out of here.
Speaker 3: And what I like about the concept of this book
Speaker 3: is not that I'm ever here to stop anyone from
Speaker 3: pursuing a new goal. I do a lot of like
Speaker 3: I do a lot of telling girls to quit. I
Speaker 3: love it. Sometimes you just have to get out of there, yes,
Speaker 3: but in this economy you can't always just quit and
Speaker 3: go on to the next thing right away. This is
Speaker 3: almost like it's a toolkit to say this can make
Speaker 3: it maybe more tolerable for you. It empowers us to
Speaker 3: take some action that can actually make things a little
Speaker 3: better for us potentially. And I just hope that, like
Speaker 3: if you're listening to this podcast, ba fam, I hope
Speaker 3: that it doesn't feel like one more thing that we
Speaker 3: have to do, we have to carry because managers aren't
Speaker 3: trained and companies don't care about us. We got to
Speaker 3: care about ourselves. But like feel that empowerment that we
Speaker 3: can actually get more of what we need because we
Speaker 3: have the language that you know, a book like talk
Speaker 3: to Me nice is providing us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you Amandy for saying that, because I don't
Speaker 1: want us to feel the burden to have to do
Speaker 1: one more thing, but I wanted the one more thing
Speaker 1: to feel like we're empowered.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, if we are in an environment where we're not
Speaker 1: able to leave right now, haven't had certain conversations, what
Speaker 1: would it look like to give ourself permission to have it?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So now we can say, Okay, maybe Gina is invested
Speaker 1: in my success. Maybe she isn't, But now that I've
Speaker 1: told her here's what I need to do my best work.
Speaker 2: Perhaps they can now provide that to us.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anybody shows up in the workplace
Speaker 1: to say, how can I row trust with so and so?
Speaker 2: Today?
Speaker 1: I don't feel like we're that delicious, you know, like pychets.
Speaker 1: I mean, there might be one or two that think
Speaker 1: that way, but for the most part, I think we
Speaker 1: just are moving at ninety thousand miles per hour. We're
Speaker 1: not thinking and considering people. And what this boils down
Speaker 1: to is how do we restore respect, humanity and dignity
Speaker 1: inside the workplace? Right? Even when we have to have
Speaker 1: difficult conversations, and I just think oftentimes we just don't
Speaker 1: have the language. And so I'm hopeful that talk to
Speaker 1: me nice will provide language for the employee and the
Speaker 1: manager to be able to talk to each other without
Speaker 1: there let's avoid each other in the hallway when we
Speaker 1: see each other.
Speaker 2: Or on zoom right. So that is my gift to
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: The hopefully we can talk to each other a little
Speaker 1: bit nice when we know what words need to be said,
Speaker 1: or at least start to have them.
Speaker 3: Those conversations you mentioned the first, secondary, and tertiary love languages, like,
Speaker 3: how do we figure out what our ideal workplace love languages?
Speaker 3: I think mine is all of them that you mentioned,
Speaker 3: but especially the money one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Is it important to yea? How do you help readers
Speaker 3: understand what their primary language is?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 1: And it was so fun to write this book. If
Speaker 1: anybody's read any of my other books, I really wear
Speaker 1: my heart on my sleeve about a lot of the
Speaker 1: experiences I had in the workplace as a black woman,
Speaker 1: and I feel like my other book's empowered, but I
Speaker 1: also feel like this one was more of a very
Speaker 1: much kind of a choose your own adventure, if you will,
Speaker 1: because I want people to understand what their primary languages are,
Speaker 1: but also not just theirs.
Speaker 2: But the people that they work with. Right.
Speaker 1: So I might be transparency girl, but somebody who's on
Speaker 1: my team, they might need me to be a little
Speaker 1: more sensitive to certain cultural moments in how I talk
Speaker 1: about certain things, right, or they might need more feedback
Speaker 1: from me. And so I also want to be able
Speaker 1: to equit myself so that I'm giving trust as I'm
Speaker 1: hoping to receive trust. So I don't want people to
Speaker 1: read the book and think, oh, this is all about me, me, me, Yes,
Speaker 1: you are important, but I also want this to be
Speaker 1: a mechanism for you to have better relationships and conversations
Speaker 1: with your direct reports, your colleagues, right, and people in
Speaker 1: your life, so that you're also enhancing trusts versus evrouting
Speaker 1: trusts that you may not even be aware of. There's
Speaker 1: a ton of activities and quizzes and sort of graphs
Speaker 1: for you to find out what that is. And so
Speaker 1: it was just again such a fun experience for me
Speaker 1: to write this book for people to drill down into
Speaker 1: what matters most to them in the workplace. And out
Speaker 1: of all the conversations I had, people were pretty much
Speaker 1: saying one of the seven things or a couple of these.
Speaker 1: And so I'm excited to find out and hear what
Speaker 1: people find out to be their trust language, because maybe
Speaker 1: trust isn't the issue. You just need a little bit
Speaker 1: more of something, and somebody in the workplace needs to
Speaker 1: know you need.
Speaker 3: That and also can get you quicker to clarity on
Speaker 3: what your next step can be. So, just like in
Speaker 3: any relationship, you know, are you capable of giving me
Speaker 3: what I need? You know some people are not, And
Speaker 3: so in that case, you have to make a decision
Speaker 3: like are you going to continue to stay someplace where
Speaker 3: you're not going to get what you need and the
Speaker 3: other person is not capable or not willing to make
Speaker 3: those changes. And if that's the case, then maybe the
Speaker 3: best thing for you to do is to, you know,
Speaker 3: move on or request to be on a different team
Speaker 3: or at the very least, I know, the economy is
Speaker 3: so tough. Right now, take that information and just look
Speaker 3: at it objectively as a piece of data that you
Speaker 3: now have about what you need from your next role,
Speaker 3: what you're looking for in your next manager. I could
Speaker 3: also see people using this to kind of suss out
Speaker 3: in an interview the language or like how receptive their
Speaker 3: manager or the senior leadership team would be to providing
Speaker 3: the kind of communication style that works for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you hit it on the head.
Speaker 1: I actually have a chapter that I talk about once
Speaker 1: you find out what you need in the workplace and
Speaker 1: what languages are most important to you, use those in
Speaker 1: your interview process. Right, ask those questions, because you don't
Speaker 1: want to find another manager that's not going to provide
Speaker 1: follow through for you when you know you need that
Speaker 1: most Right, you're not going to be happy. And back
Speaker 1: to your point too, is they say that eight out
Speaker 1: of ten people will leave their job a job that
Speaker 1: they like for the most part, but because they don't
Speaker 1: want to have a difficult conversation about what the conflict
Speaker 1: might be. And so my hope is that we give
Speaker 1: ourselves that permission to say, let me at least have
Speaker 1: the conversation about what's necessary, so when I walk away,
Speaker 1: they can never say, well, I didn't know Menda.
Speaker 2: Needed that for me. She never articulated that to me.
Speaker 1: Right, I had a situation in my former life where
Speaker 1: I thought I was going to get this promotion they
Speaker 1: were quote unquote grooming me and all the things, and
Speaker 1: then they ended up bringing somebody from the outset in
Speaker 1: hiring them, and I was like devastated because I had
Speaker 1: this expectation that it was mine, and so I got
Speaker 1: enough courage to go have a conversation with the person
Speaker 1: who made the decision. I said, you know, I'm really
Speaker 1: surprised by the choice when I thought that I had
Speaker 1: been taking over my manager's workload all of those things,
Speaker 1: and like, well, you never articulated that this is what
Speaker 1: you wanted.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, girl, i've.
Speaker 1: Been showing up early, I've been doing all the things.
Speaker 1: And part of that was on me because I hadn't articulated.
Speaker 1: I just kind of assumed, right, So I mean not
Speaker 1: to put them.
Speaker 3: To the work, and it will be acknowledged.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought, Right, But I had never had
Speaker 1: that conversation, and that gave me such a moment. I'll
Speaker 1: never let that happen again, right, I'll always be very
Speaker 1: clear and concise and have clarity about what it is
Speaker 1: I want so that nobody could say, oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that's what you wanted, right, And so when to
Speaker 1: your point, when we were like little inspector gadgets. We
Speaker 1: need to get that information. And if you find that
Speaker 1: your manager can't provide you with follow through, then that's
Speaker 1: information that you can now think about and then say, okay,
Speaker 1: well let me see maybe I got six more months
Speaker 1: here at.
Speaker 2: Least be out the conversation. Yeah, And that does something
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 1: So now we know, we don't again, we don't have
Speaker 1: to create a narrative of if they are invested in
Speaker 1: our success or not.
Speaker 2: Now we know, and hopefully we'll have a better outcome.
Speaker 3: I love anything that offers an opportunity to zoom out,
Speaker 3: look at the bigger picture of your career and not
Speaker 3: take every poor communication, every poor management experience, every poor
Speaker 3: colleague experience like as the end of or like such
Speaker 3: a big deal. You know, it was a it was
Speaker 3: a blip. It was unfortunate with a negative experience. But
Speaker 3: in the grand scheme of things, like to not so
Speaker 3: that we don't have to take things to heart so
Speaker 3: much because I think, and it's not too at all,
Speaker 3: because I feel big feelings, you know as well. But
Speaker 3: I just encounter so many women in my work who
Speaker 3: are internalizing and really taking it personal when they have
Speaker 3: these like points of friction or when they feel like
Speaker 3: they're not getting what they want, like that example that
Speaker 3: you came, that could really send someone spiraling into a depress.
Speaker 3: You know, if they didn't have, you know, the courage
Speaker 3: like you did to confront the issue, get the clarity
Speaker 3: on what was happening, they could really internalize that into
Speaker 3: I'm not good enough, I'm constantly overlooked. And then you
Speaker 3: start feeding into that narrative as black women women of
Speaker 3: color in the workplace of like we're overlooked, we're underpaid,
Speaker 3: no one acknowledges us da da da da dah and
Speaker 3: rewinding for a second, or like zooming out and saying
Speaker 3: that doesn't have to necessarily be the story of what's
Speaker 3: happening right now, does that? You know, Like, I'm so
Speaker 3: empathetic of people who are going through situations like that,
Speaker 3: and just it all goes internal, do you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, instead of like being able to put it.
Speaker 4: Out there and get clarity and comfort from that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, I'll be honest. I spiraled for about
Speaker 1: a month and created this narrative of.
Speaker 2: They hate me, I have to leave. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: they don't appreciate me.
Speaker 1: I did all the things and how I felt was
Speaker 1: real right, but I needed to also rooted in some facts,
Speaker 1: so let me go find out right.
Speaker 2: And I had to push myself to be able to
Speaker 2: go have that kind of easy. It's not easy.
Speaker 4: I'm glad to hear that's you're human. It took you
Speaker 4: a month.
Speaker 1: It took me a month because I was like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, I need to know the answer. And I
Speaker 1: think to your point, sometimes we'll go on the rumination
Speaker 1: ride of our lives and create these moments or may
Speaker 1: not be true. And I think we also have to
Speaker 1: trust ourselves and talk to ourself nice. So I hope
Speaker 1: that people will also you start to think about what
Speaker 1: trusting themselves again looks like in their voice.
Speaker 4: I want to take a quick break, Menda.
Speaker 3: But when we come back, can we chat about the
Speaker 3: other fun stuff that you have going on? Yes, because
Speaker 3: you are a multi hyphen queen. Okay, we be right back,
Speaker 3: ba fam With more from Menda Hearts. She is the
Speaker 3: author of many books, but her most recent book, which
Speaker 3: is coming out this week. When y'all are listening to
Speaker 3: this podcast, go get it. It's called Talk to Me Nice.
Speaker 3: The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace. We will
Speaker 3: be right back right ba, fam, I am back with
Speaker 3: my favee Menda. Hearts making her stick around because I'm
Speaker 3: going to talk about what else you have going on.
Speaker 3: You've sort of carved out this career for your that's
Speaker 3: so multifaceted. You obviously you have yours, You do a
Speaker 3: lot of speaking, you do consulting, You are an author,
Speaker 3: but you're also a filmmaker. Can you talk to me
Speaker 3: about like when did that journey become and what has
Speaker 3: the filmmaking side of your career your business however you
Speaker 3: see it, like where that came from and how that's going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you for asking.
Speaker 1: Life is really a box of chocolates because you just
Speaker 1: never know where it's going to take you, for like,
Speaker 1: for real, for real. And I've always loved movies. I
Speaker 1: used to write short stories when I was in grade
Speaker 1: school in junior high school, but I never thought that
Speaker 1: I could be a filmmaker or a storyteller in that
Speaker 1: way because I never seen anyone around me do it.
Speaker 1: But my mom would always have Turner Classic movies on,
Speaker 1: so I was like always watching these black and white
Speaker 1: movies and just.
Speaker 2: Enthralled with them.
Speaker 1: And so it was always something even as an adult
Speaker 1: that I really really enjoyed and studied. And then when
Speaker 1: I started writing books, maybe about a year after the
Speaker 1: memo came out, I started taking green writing classes at
Speaker 1: UCLA because I knew at some point I wanted to
Speaker 1: transition into telling different types of stories, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what that even looks like. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: perfect the craft. And you know they say, if you
Speaker 1: stay ready, you don't have to get ready, So I
Speaker 1: wanted to invest in myself in that way.
Speaker 2: And then the.
Speaker 1: Memo, years later, was optioned into a short film starring
Speaker 1: our all Cousins in our Head Kyla Pratt, and so
Speaker 1: that pushed me too to be like, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's time, Linda, It's time.
Speaker 3: And so it slow down though, because I know that
Speaker 3: Kyla Pratt start. But the word optioned is like such
Speaker 3: because I am such a like a civilian. I'm not
Speaker 3: in the media, like the entertainment side of things, but
Speaker 3: I love reading the business, like the varieties, the Hollywood reporter,
Speaker 3: the deadlines, and for a book to be optioned, that's
Speaker 3: the dream. But what the hell does that mean? Like
Speaker 3: how do you find out that the memo is being optioned?
Speaker 3: And then how do you get that actually made into
Speaker 3: a film?
Speaker 2: That's a great question.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a bookook and somebody else named Felicia Butterfield,
Speaker 1: who some of you may know, shout out to Alisia.
Speaker 1: She created a production company called Seed Media, and she
Speaker 1: reached out to me, and we've been fans of each
Speaker 1: other's work, and she said.
Speaker 2: What are you doing with the memo?
Speaker 1: I would love to adapt it into a film. And
Speaker 1: so we met and.
Speaker 2: Our people's met, our lawyers, and.
Speaker 1: So we just said, yeah, we want to work together
Speaker 1: and we want the story to be told on a
Speaker 1: broader her lens.
Speaker 2: And she had Kyla in mind.
Speaker 1: And we actually met with Kyla at the Soho House
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, and Kyla's like, yes, I want to
Speaker 1: do this, and it's just it's been a beautiful experience.
Speaker 4: In this book.
Speaker 3: The memo, first of all, tell people really quickly just
Speaker 3: what it's about for those who haven't read it. Also,
Speaker 3: while you're getting talked to me, nice, you need to
Speaker 3: go get the memo. It's a classic, yes, a perennial classic,
Speaker 3: but really quickly like it's a lot of your personal stories.
Speaker 3: So then the short film became like a piece of
Speaker 3: that right.
Speaker 1: Yes, So the memo was basically like part memoir about
Speaker 1: my experience of being the only black woman in the workplace,
Speaker 1: and I talk about the highs and lows and then
Speaker 1: also how we redefine what success looks like for us
Speaker 1: inside the workplace.
Speaker 2: And so that.
Speaker 1: Book came out in twenty nineteen, and then it got
Speaker 1: optioned in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: And we.
Speaker 3: Only came out in twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen. So you
Speaker 3: haven't just written four books. You've written four books of
Speaker 3: like six years. I don't understand me, and you're like
Speaker 3: making movies.
Speaker 2: I'm like, who I? Who am?
Speaker 3: I thought you were a human, but I thought it
Speaker 3: turns out your AI.
Speaker 1: Okay, even before before AI, I was turning these out.
Speaker 1: But so yeah, then it went so smooth. And the
Speaker 1: one thing I love about having my book the memo
Speaker 1: option is that most of the time, what people don't
Speaker 1: know is when you get your book option, you don't
Speaker 1: get to be part of the process. You're kind of
Speaker 1: iced out and whatever people want to make of it
Speaker 1: make of it, and you just kind of get to
Speaker 1: ride the wave with your head.
Speaker 3: So do they pay you money to make your concept
Speaker 3: or take your material like, is that how it works?
Speaker 3: And then you sign a document that says you can
Speaker 3: do whatever you want with it.
Speaker 1: So when you get it optioned, you don't actually make
Speaker 1: any money upfront. You would and because mine went to
Speaker 1: short film first, and then now we're in conversations with
Speaker 1: some of the networks to create a limited series or
Speaker 1: a movie out of it, and so that's when I
Speaker 1: would see some percentage. But right now it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like you're when you write a book. For those
Speaker 1: who know about the book process, you may not see anything.
Speaker 4: For a little while, but yes, I know that is.
Speaker 2: Very important to get the story out. And so the
Speaker 2: one thing I loved.
Speaker 1: I had heard stories that oftentimes the author doesn't get
Speaker 1: to be part of the casting or in the writer's room,
Speaker 1: and Alicia from day one is like, I want you
Speaker 1: to be a part of it because I want you
Speaker 1: to feel safe that I'm telling the right story.
Speaker 3: And so trust, trust language, trust, and shall demonstrate it.
Speaker 2: She demonstrated it, and.
Speaker 1: She was very sensitive to how I felt about the situation,
Speaker 1: and it was just great, And we did different screenings
Speaker 1: around the country, and we've been selected to various film
Speaker 1: festivals to show the memo and it's just been a
Speaker 1: really amazing ride. And it prompted me to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, it's time to because I had all of
Speaker 1: these scripts that I had been working on on my
Speaker 1: own outside of the memo and other story worse I did, and.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4: And I just a girl. I'm a writer.
Speaker 1: I'm just a writer. So let's do this because there's
Speaker 1: never going to be a right time. And so I
Speaker 1: just went for it. And I've always no matter what,
Speaker 1: I've always bett it on me and that's just the
Speaker 1: way I.
Speaker 2: Live my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so fascinated by the short film industry because
Speaker 3: my younger brother, Alex has been on the podcast a
Speaker 3: couple of times, and he works in tech and he
Speaker 3: has for a while sales and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And I feel like, maybe a decade ago, one of
Speaker 3: his friends from college who had done my brother has
Speaker 3: like a past life. I tried to be a rapper.
Speaker 3: There's some music that that are very fun to watch now.
Speaker 3: He probably took down off YouTube and his friend had
Speaker 3: this like cinematography business, and Alex slowly got more and
Speaker 3: more involved and then and this is incredible for me
Speaker 3: as his big sister, because as we were kids and
Speaker 3: I would like I would edit his Harry Potter.
Speaker 4: Fan fiction.
Speaker 3: And we would just like, you know, we were such
Speaker 3: nerds and we'd love to write. But he's in, you know,
Speaker 3: but storytelling, and I always thought it was amazing he
Speaker 3: would he finally had taken some stories and he learned
Speaker 3: by just like advising his friends cinematography business in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: just being an advisor, being a funder, you know, like
Speaker 3: he was funneling some of his hard earned cash from
Speaker 3: his career in corporate to help fund the business. And
Speaker 3: then he's like, I'm going to take a shot at this,
Speaker 3: and he wrote a script.
Speaker 4: And then he made a movie, Happen.
Speaker 3: He made a short film Happen, and it's been premiering
Speaker 3: at these film festivals across the country. He's been to
Speaker 3: so many. And what's incredible to me is how much
Speaker 3: art is being created that a lot of us won't
Speaker 3: get to see because they are only seen in these
Speaker 3: festival circuits. You know, So how has that been for you, like,
Speaker 3: to be able to promote the film and want it
Speaker 3: to be more places. I'm just wondering, what's that been
Speaker 3: like for you, like, do you have a favorite medium now,
Speaker 3: like you've written the books, now you're doing the short
Speaker 3: film circuit. But that can be really fulfilling, but also
Speaker 3: does it get frustrating not being able to get the
Speaker 3: art in front of more people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is frustrating because but it's also empowering. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I realized even with the memo
Speaker 1: before the book came out, I started a blog and
Speaker 1: that was just a few people reading it every week,
Speaker 1: and eventually it grew and I feel like I'm back
Speaker 1: in my memo bag with my new short film. The
Speaker 1: distance between that it's up to me to start to
Speaker 1: drip that out and share that information. And I self
Speaker 1: funded this project and I wrote, produced, and directed. I'd
Speaker 1: never done those things before, and yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: it was very empowering to say, wow, I actually feel
Speaker 1: like putting this body of work out for people to
Speaker 1: see felt even more fulfilling than some of the previous
Speaker 1: work I've done, because to start to create something and
Speaker 1: take it to the finish line, have other people say
Speaker 1: this is a good story, we want to work on
Speaker 1: it too, it just felt so fulfilling. I often say
Speaker 1: that success is not a solo sport. And when I
Speaker 1: wrote my book, obviously I wrote it, but I had
Speaker 1: editors that helped, you know, at the publisher. But in
Speaker 1: this case, success really was not a solo sport.
Speaker 4: Right, because yeah, that's what my brother says. He loves
Speaker 4: the team of it all.
Speaker 2: Oh, it takes so many, It takes so many.
Speaker 1: And when I first started the journey, I thought, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if I write a good story, then that'll do its
Speaker 1: thing right, and then I'll find the right actresses and
Speaker 1: they'll do their thing. But then as I got through
Speaker 1: the process, I'm like, wait a second. From the PA
Speaker 1: to the colorists, to the editor, to the cinemata, everybody's
Speaker 1: roles matter and the success of this film and it's
Speaker 1: the entire ecosystem. And it's taught me so much about
Speaker 1: trust and admitting when you.
Speaker 2: Don't know something.
Speaker 1: And so it's just been an incredibly humbling experiperience in
Speaker 1: gratifying and I hope that the audience will be able
Speaker 1: to see the distance.
Speaker 3: Between Yeah, where can we is it? Are you getting
Speaker 3: into festivals now?
Speaker 1: So literally, as we're recording, I got my first notification
Speaker 1: that we got accepted to our first festival.
Speaker 4: Yes, I know, now that that's very exciting.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so it's very exciting.
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, someone gets to see it, because there
Speaker 1: could have been a chance that nobody saw it in
Speaker 1: that medium. But I'm excited, and so that allows us
Speaker 1: to be able to put out a trailer for others
Speaker 1: to see it soon. So stay tuned and hopefully you'll
Speaker 1: see more of my writing come across to your bigger screen.
Speaker 3: So the memo, then you're in potential talks to have
Speaker 3: that turned into like an actual series.
Speaker 1: Yes, we are having conversations currently with some networks to
Speaker 1: talk about what that could look like. And so you
Speaker 1: know that's also an exciting, you know, learning experience as well.
Speaker 2: You just want to just tell everybody you just never know.
Speaker 1: You have to plant the seed and you never know
Speaker 1: how it's going to to harvest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely true. I'm so proud of you too.
Speaker 3: I mean, you didn't you you are in La? Did
Speaker 3: you grow up in La?
Speaker 1: I'm from California, but I grew up in Chicago and
Speaker 1: then I came okay, came back to LA as a
Speaker 1: much more seasoned adult.
Speaker 4: The best kind of adult.
Speaker 2: A little more money in my pocket, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yes, living your best life.
Speaker 2: You got your fur baby, yes, my fur baby Romans.
Speaker 3: Also, I'm so sorry, I know you're you just you
Speaker 3: posted about one of your puppies passing away, right, yes,
Speaker 3: yes so but.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know those are my babies and uh so
Speaker 1: it's mommy has to keep working so she can give
Speaker 1: the fur babies their their best life.
Speaker 3: I wish I was a pet, so it's such a
Speaker 3: nice life. A pet of a mommy with only for
Speaker 3: children would be the best. Yes, I did want to ask, like,
Speaker 3: just acknowledge that you didn't grow up in the film industry,
Speaker 3: but that, just like my brother we had, we were
Speaker 3: so far from that.
Speaker 4: Atlanta was not even on Hollywood's radar. I don't think
Speaker 4: when we are coming up. So how do you write?
Speaker 4: How do you advise.
Speaker 3: People or give any advice to someone who's potentially thinking
Speaker 3: about breaking in to that space and learning more about it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think empowering yourself. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: tools I think available to us now.
Speaker 2: Podcasts.
Speaker 1: I listened to two podcasts called The Town and Script Notes,
Speaker 1: and that talks a lot about the film industry. I
Speaker 1: read a ton of books about it. I go to
Speaker 1: different seminars and then when you have the opportunity, just
Speaker 1: make it right. Because I don't know Martin Scorsese, but
Speaker 1: I was able to make a film right, and you
Speaker 1: may not know Tyler.
Speaker 2: A black woman, you can make a film.
Speaker 1: So you just find your tribe, just like anything, and
Speaker 1: if you build it, they will come.
Speaker 4: I love it all right.
Speaker 3: So they've got a script kicking around right now, ba fam,
Speaker 3: do something with it, and maybe you just need to
Speaker 3: find a friend who knows a little bit about something.
Speaker 3: They're doing movies on iPhone cameras now, like, come on, y'all,
Speaker 3: it's totally doable. Well, you're such an inspiration to me,
Speaker 3: and I wish you so much success with the book.
Speaker 3: I hope it is one of the fourth not the final,
Speaker 3: because I don't think you're ever going to let yourself
Speaker 3: fully stop because you're just a creator. But thanks for
Speaker 3: making Brown Ambision a part of your little press tour
Speaker 3: for this book. And I hope you'll come back again
Speaker 3: and join us, and I hope I can see you
Speaker 3: again in person sometime soon.
Speaker 2: Need too, and thank you for always seeing me. It
Speaker 2: means so much.
Speaker 4: Oh, likewise, thank you Menda.
Speaker 3: All right, pa fam, please go pick up her book
Speaker 3: Talk to Me Nice, The Seven trust Languages of the
Speaker 3: for a Better Workplace by Menda Hearts. Also, go check
Speaker 3: out the Right Win, Go check out the memo. We're
Speaker 3: going to put a link to your website if y'all
Speaker 3: want to follow along, see where her short films are
Speaker 3: going to be premiered, and just follow more of your journey.
Speaker 3: Right BYEBA fan.
Speaker 4: Take care,